'Riff Raff' gets gritty, while 'Kabulitis' gets lost

A botched drug deal brings three lowlifes together in an abandoned building to figure out their next move in Laurence Fishburne's ode to street-level criminality and the poetically profane.

Morpheus — sorry, Fishburne — directed and starred in the play when it debuted in New York in 1995, but its tense, blackly comic, in-your-face storytelling has Chicago storefront theater written all over it. This is the type of play that once defined the local scene, and it is precisely the sort of thing that Mary-Arrchie does so well. "There will be gunshots, and there's no intermission," director Richard Cotovsky announced before the show, and depending on your point of view, that is either a very good sign or your cue to seek entertainment elsewhere.

First thing you notice is John Holt's wonderfully disgusting rathole, a squatter's paradise rife with graffiti, filthy furniture and ghosts of junkies past. The place is vile, and again, right in the Mary-Arrchie wheelhouse. Fishburne's dialogue comes easily to this cast, as they bark about their flimflam scams and the "kung-foolishness in the world." Mike Cherry, as the dim bulb of the trio, doesn't get much to do, but a speech late in the game about his father is handled with real nuance, as is the story told by Eduardo Martinez about how he met Cherry's loser character. But it is Eric Sherman-Christ, as the deceptively low-key cleaner who arrives to fix this mess, who holds the stage at every moment. There is a precision to the performance that creates just the right amount of anxiety — a coiled snake waiting to attack.

What do Americans really know about life in Kabul outside of news reports, such as the shooting this week at the CIA office that left one American dead?

With history as a conduit, playwright Keith Anwar attempts to peel back the layers by toggling between times and places. Half of the play is set in 1940s Kabul, where the American-born Mildred (Caron Buinis) lives a rather precarious existence with her progressive minded Afghan husband (Gustavo Obregon). The other half transpires nearly a half a century later — just a few months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 — in a bedroom community north of New York City where Mildred now resides, battling Alzheimer's and old demons.

Though rich with potential, the play (in a production from Polarity Ensemble with Rasaka Theatre) feels like a draft in need of revisions. Based on the experiences of the playwright's parents, the piece could use more confidence in its storytelling, as well as some finessing of its clunky philosophical debates.

There are issues here with narrative repetition, as well as a lack of sufficient context and back story, but Anwar was only just getting started as a playwright when he died of liver cancer last year, and director Lavina Jadhwani's ensemble does a credible job crafting personal moments when they count.